I never could understand that hate against Elthina. She viewed both sides as children who needed looking after. In someone in the position of authority she wanted to treat them both the best she could. I’m not saying it was the best decision to make, but she was trying to protect everyone.

Well, if we go with the two children analogy, Elthina is the single mother to a fifteen-year-old and a ten-year-old, and they also have a baby sibling (Kirkwall’s non-mage citizens) that Elthina focuses the majority of her attention on.

The teenager looks after the younger sibling in Elthina’s stead while she attends to the baby. Only, the teenager doesn’t always do a very hot job of it. He’s beating on his little brother, calling him names, saying how mom doesn’t want him, and he’s why dad left.

So the middle child tries to find coping mechanisms. He starts mutilating himself, he acts out at school, rebels against his elder sibling, and even starts taking out his anger on the baby.

A sensible mother stops letting the eldest son take care of the middle kid and finds someone better suited for the job. She has options, she has a niece who’d do it for cheap. Instead, she keeps letting the eldest look after the middle child, and maybe scolds the eldest when she sees him doing something he shouldn’t to the middle kid, however, not usually in a manner that’ll actually deter the eldest child from his behavior.

She doesn’t do anything to help her middle son, she doesn’t discipline the eldest for being a total shit, she says, “look at what your squabbling is doing to this household. Go to your rooms.”

She ignores the problems festering in her middle child, does nothing to protect him from his elder brother, until one night the middle child snaps and attacks her because of her neutrality.